A touch of irony
by Jennifer Wilson
Summary: Henry decides to go back to see an old friend. He really should have thought better about going there without a weapon. Who knows what would happen in Chapter 3?
1. Chapter 1

"Uncle Henry?" He looked up from the letter to see his niece looking over his shoulder. He absent-mindedly hid the letter behind the back, but Jeanne attempted to snatch the letter away from him instead. Snorting in annoyance, Henry relinquished the letter to Jeanne.

"It's a letter from my former boss." He reluctantly explained as his niece scanned through the letter eagerly.

"From Joey Drew Studios?" Henry nodded. "I think its name was Sillyvision, but yes, the very same." He was slightly worried about his boss though. Despite continuing to remain in the field in a different studio, he still felt worried about what was going on with his old workplace.

Henry had intended to investigate the venue personally, but this made less and less sense the more he looked at it. The last he heard, Joey had dropped out of the business. And no one had heard of his whereabouts. In a small industry like animation, Henry knew that no one could disappear so completely.

Henry had been deployed, but he had not rejoined his workplace after the war. First, he had three kids to raise, and he did not want to go back to such a poisonous atmosphere after a grueling time at war. Joey had said something about appeasing the gods even during his spell working with Joey; Henry did not know what he was going on about, but it was nothing good.

Henry felt it was a shame that Bendy was now dead as far as the public was concerned. The animation industry was cutting staff, and there wasn't much of a point going back into the business, let alone producing his own cartoons.

 _Dear Henry_

 _It seems like a lifetime since we worked on cartoons together. 30 years really slips away, doesn't it?_

 _If you're back in town, come visit the old workshop. There's something I need to show you._

 _Your best pal, Joey Drew._

The words were a bit loopy, but it was unmistakably Joey's handwriting, which was why Henry had not dismissed it as a fluke straight offhand. He could call or even fax, it was not as if he could not be found on the phonebook just a few hours off from where the studio had been. Furthermore, the letter had been written on _yellowed_ copy paper. Then again, Joey could have just used some random paper off the table and not recognized what he was writing on.

"Are you planning on meeting him?" Jeanne asked, making the implications clear; he was not allowed to go alone.

"Yeah, I think I should. Check up on the old boy…" Thirty years was hopefully enough to smooth over the multiple arguments they had during his last days at the studio; hopefully enough to talk to Joey on even ground.

"But the workshop hasn't been outputting anything since the last few years, is it safe?" Jeanne argued.

"I think it should. Joey and I are quite old, we can't do much to each other."

" _Rar rar_ , gab the geriatrics as they attempt to hit each other with biros and brushes." Jeanne rolled her eyes, but did not object further as she stood up.

"I'll tell the coffee vampires not to wait up and prepare a supply of their favorite drink to tide them over."

"Jeanne!"

"What? They wither away in the sunlight and shroud themselves in darkness while bent over their drawings and manuscripts! What's a better metaphor than that?"

"…You do have a point." Henry thus spent some time helping her to dump the remaining coffee together and scribbled a note to remind Louis to continue working on upcoming projects.

Henry's current studio was a co-production studio, and thus rather than initiating their productions, they were often called up to finish touching up on cartoons made by Disney and Paramount. Henry did not like the drudgery of that sort of work, but it paid well enough and the workers weren't forced to spend their entire weekday at the studio, so Henry considered it a win. However, this also meant that they did no creative stuff on their own, and Henry often had to see off some of his junior animators from time to time and help finish up on cartoons from the bigger studios. Henry and his assistant director Louis were the only permanent staffers while the rest were an eccentric mixture of interns hoping to score contract with the major studios, part-timers looking to put food on the table, and older members hopping between jobs. There was no loyalty to the studio, but hey, at least they were able to watch what they were showing on screen, unlike other small-timers who were forced to close as the behemoths swallowed them one by one.

Henry was nostalgic about Sillyvision; he liked the camaraderie before Joey went nuts and they were focused on pushing out Bendy cartoons. He wondered what his workplace looked like now. After all, he had left a few months before the war effort started in earnest and the government pressured studios to push out war propaganda. Henry probably would have bailed out before _that_ happened.

"I'm done Uncle Henry!" Jeanne was dressed in a relatively shabby leather jacket and jeans she had worn yesterday while in the studio, causing Henry to sigh in disbelief. He could not see how this was appealing to the younger generations. He very much preferred the trousers and vest that people his age still wore.

* * *

"You stay outside for two hours. I think there's a pub around here if you get bored." He instructed Jeanne.

"Fifteen minutes." She interjected, twitching her lip in dismay.

"At least an hour, I want to talk with him, not just say hi!"

"Okay, thirty minutes." Henry huffed. That was probably as good as he could get from his overprotective niece. Jeanne was persistent about his safety, and he could not see why she thought a perfectly healthy sixty year old could be in any danger, even if the studio was slightly dilapidated. However, Henry was quite confident of his ability to take care of himself, and so he strode forward, hand on his hip, ready to have a good long talk with Joey for the first in thirty years.

Meanwhile, back at the car, Jeanne noticed that her uncle had stupidly forgotten to bring his pocket watch.

"That careless, clumsy man!" She exclaimed as she picked it up. "Uncle Henry? Uncle Henry!" But her uncle had disappeared into the ramshackle place, and she scratched her head in thought. On one hand, he was fit for a sixty year old, but on the other hand…

"Fifteen minutes, then I go in if he cries for help." Jeanne started rummaging through the glove compartment. "I'm sure I've got a torchlight and some equipment here…"

* * *

Henry was once reminded of how long he had _not_ been back as he once again stumbled into a dead end which never existed in his time. Once again, he had been freaked out by a cutout, tripped over ink messes and stopped in dismay at the writing on the wall.

When he stopped by his old desk, he winced. He was used to the cel shading with colour, but this really took him back.

"I've wasted so much time in this chair." Continued drawing in the same chair, heated discussions over…Henry could not remember over what exactly, but it was little things like that which had driven him up the wall until his tolerance had reached its limit and was almost relieved to be drafted. He was not happy that his best years were spent in Asian jungles though; just a bit sad. It must have been small and unimportant if he could not remember what had sparked off the frustration he had experienced though.

Then again, he was too young to have much patience. Much like some of the younger interns, he had thirsted to prove himself, and hence he was probably more difficult to work with back then. It really was a golden age of shorts…

Henry nearly bumped into a gigantic, wooden engine that seemed to be propped up on hope and dreams, or as Jeanne would put it, a 'disaster of gears and nightmares stuck together with obstinacy.' This must have been the "Ink Machine" which Wally had complained about.

"So this is the Ink Machine huh? Wonder how you turn it on." Henry said as he walked around it. He walked down a hallway, hoping to see it in action before the inevitable showdown with Joey, whichever form it might take. He felt for his watch, but upon searching his pockets, Henry realized that he had left it in the car. Jeanne would be harping on him the next time he saw her.

But first, the ink machine. Henry searched around the rooms until he found the power room, where there were six pedestals waiting for something to be put on them. Luckily for Henry, there were picture frames depicting what was going to be placed there, and thus he searched through the rooms once more-–

"Gah!" Of course, the occasional Bendy cutout left him stunned for a few moments. Henry felt a wave of dread settling in for the long term as he caught the sight of a strange figure _carrying the cutout_ as they rounded a corner. Chasing after the figure, Henry had been shocked to the core when he caught sight of what appeared to be Boris' dead body.

"Oh my god. Joey, what were you doing?" Henry asked, feeling utterly appalled at what his boss, no, his _friend,_ had got up to. This was too cruel, and Henry, who had been in an actual war knew that this went far beyond torture. Boris was evidently dead, in a comically horrible manner with his Wingding eyes in the shape of crosses and all his internal organs excised. Henry felt nauseous, especially when he chanced upon the candles. And the 'Who's Laughing Now?' message written in ink across the board. It all seemed ...satanic and ritual-like. He didn't know that Joey was interested in this matter, but evidently Henry did not understand his boss at all if he was capable of doing such…such _things, things_ that Henry had no words for.

He said a small prayer, hoping that at least something of good intent would have reached Boris or whoever was listening up there, before departing to look for the remaining items. Henry soon found the Bendy doll he had tripped over earlier, picked up the record wedged behind a shelf, the ink he had found earlier in his desk, a gear leaning against the wall, a wrench near the projector, and finally, a book, 'The Illusion of Living' by Joey Drew.

Henry flipped through the pages. Pentacles and witchcraft shit which had landed their show in trouble with the censorship authorities; it took a long time before Joey was able to negotiate a distribution deal. This was probably an inspiration for the ritual that involved dissecting Boris, but Henry refused to think on it further until he could confront Joey for _answers_.

Placing them on the pedestals, Henry started checking for the switch to increase the ink pressure, and hopefully alert Joey along with it. He knew Joey was probably staying on the upper levels if he had returned to the studio, but Henry was more concerned about how long he had taken to just switch on the power. Jeanne would come rushing in if she had thought that Henry was in danger, and would have no doubt dragged him out once she saw Boris there. Thus he hurried, bumping against yet _another_ cutout which seemed to be peeking at him.

The projector had abruptly turned on as he searched throughout the projection room for the switch, adding another level of terror to his already frazzled nerves. Finally finding it (and watching the character prance across the screen), he pressed the switch and was relieved to hear the ink running about the pipes in the walls. Hurrying back to the switch, he flipped it, hearing the power turned on with a satisfying ' _kerchunk_ '. Ink started to flood the hallways once more, much to Henry's irritation. Wandering down the hallway, he chanced upon a corridor with a plank indicating the position of the Ink Machine.

…Why was it boarded up? Henry had no clue, but as he peeked inside, a cold shiver crept down his spine and he lunged backwards, narrowly missing the creature trying to grab him. Seemingly composed of ink and spirit, it looked humanoid, and almost Bendy-like, except in a more sinister and hellish fashion, with realistic devil horns and a wide smile that was too big to be natural.

"What the hell did Joey cook up!" Henry muttered to himself as he felt his jaw drop in shock. Forget looking for Joey, he would be happy if he never saw this place again! The lights flickered throughout the hallway as the creature made another grab at him, swiping its claws at his face. Henry needed no further encouragement to run, dashing away from the monster as he tried to look for the exit. Closing in, he was about to see the metaphoric light at the end of the tunnel…

When the ground beneath him gave way and Henry dropped through the resulting hole. It would have been funny if it were less terrifying, Henry thought to himself. For the first time since stepping foot into the studio, Henry wished that Jeanne would come in soon; he had lost track of time and could not estimate how long it had been since he stepped foot into the studio. Shivering as he caught sight of the unsettling message on the wall, Henry turned his eyes in delighted approval upon the axe hung on the wall.

Thus he started chopping up the boards that were blocking his way to what seemed to be the nearest hallway. As he found himself standing upon a pentagram symbol on the floor, with two coffins placed on the wall and candles yet again, Henry sighed.

"This place must have been taken by some kind of Satanic cult I suppose." He tried to reassure himself, hoping against hope that Joey was not the culprit behind that monster. As the world around him shook with the force of a quake, Henry felt adrenaline bleeding out of his body, and slumped onto the floor in a dead faint, exhausted from the earlier run.

* * *

Meanwhile, outside the studio, Jeanne felt the ground around them vibrate. She hissed, before taking her uncle's pocket watch, her wallet, her torchlight, and Henry's satchel for good measure.

"I'm coming in whether you like it or not Uncle Henry." She muttered under her breath even as she stepped across the hole that Henry had just fallen in.


	2. Chapter 2

"Ugh, my head." Henry rubbed what could only be a bump as he pushed himself off the floor. "What happened?" He was standing on yet another pentacle circle.

"Well, I guess there is only one thing to do." Henry said to himself as he strode forward with axe in hand. "Press on and see if I can find a way out." Unlike before, this place was an extension to the old studio, and he was unfamiliar with the layout. He would have to proceed slowly. Presumably, the quake he had felt would have alerted Jeanne, and his hardy and thick-skinned niece would probably rush in to help. Hopefully, she would have noticed that the hole near the exit was freshly made. Jeanne could protect herself, but Henry was kind of hoping that she would stay away. If only he had brought his pocket watch along and checked the timing...

He headed down the stairs, coming face to face with an altar, with ...'He will set us free?' Henry tilted his head in confusion. "What the hell?" A banjo resting against the wall, several bowls of ...eggs? Round balls of white? Candles lit up and cans of bacon soup. Yeah, he wasn't in Kansas anymore, but this was starting to get a little creepy.

"How did this place get so big?" He thought to himself after playing the recording. Sammy had gotten weird over the last few years, but this was really taking the cake. The pentacle again, with Bendy and a few candles. This time though, the pentacle was more elaborate. Henry hissed as he encountered the ink flood at the end of the corridor; so much for his trousers-

"Did a figure just run past me?" Henry waded through the ink flood, but he could not catch up even as he called after the dark stranger in his line of sight. As he finally, _finally_ made his way across the corridor, he looked to the left, then to the right. The left only contained a dead end, with pentacle, and Bendy cutout. And more bacon soup cans! Noticing a pattern, he decided to take some bacon cans for himself. It would probably come in handy, even as an antique for his nephew to collect. Especially with the cans with Bendy on them. He turned to the right, finding a series of flashing lights next to a gate. Probably had to find the switches for the gate to open, or he'll be stuck here. Hunting high and low, he flicked one right next to the altar, finding another near the ink pipe (how did anyone open the gate if it took so long!) and finally one behind the shelf of bacon soups.

As the gate opened, Henry gingerly made his way to what appeared to be the band studio. He recalled that before the advent of travelling bands, studios used to have their own in-house bands. Now, they took singers who already performed lived, and gave them themes to compose in order to boost their ratings. It was a simpler time, he reminisced. He turned on a cassette tape, and listened to Alice Angel's voice actor, smiling in memory as Susie Campbell enthused about her old role.

"Maybe we can get together and have a good laugh about it." He thought to himself.

At the end of a corridor, he found the stairwell. Unfortunately, it was flooded with ink, and unlike before, he wasn't sure how deep it went.

"Looks like the stairwell's flooded. If I'm going to get out of here, I'll need to find a way to drain it." Already, Henry could feel fatigue settling in, and he was irritated, just as Wally probably had been.

Passing by another projector room, he played the recording of yet another employee. This time, it was Norman Polk, who had stayed on after him, and as he heard the conductor protest about Sammy's erratic actions, he was reminded of the instruments. What if...

"AARGH!" Ink creatures, one after another, hurtled towards him, with arms raised in supplication as they rushed towards his axe. Heart palpitating wildly in his chest, he madly slashed at them as more and more Bendy cutouts started to appear everywhere. From within the recording studio to above the projection room, they were practically _littering_ the place. Henry could have sworn that when he went to the projector overseeing the recording studio, more and more cutouts had been scattered amongst the recording studios, yet when he rushed down, there were none there but at least two present at the balcony he had just been at.

 _Out of the pan, into the fire_. Henry cursed in defiance as he charged towards the ink creatures (would they never end? Henry thought to himself as he swung his axe across them.) Breathing heavily, he killed the active ones and headed towards Sammy's office. After a minor detour in which he hunted for the keys that Wally the janitor had lost (eventually turning up in a garbage can; what Wally was doing throwing keys together with the trash was slightly distressing but Henry decided to turn the other cheek) he found that in order to even open Sammy's 'sanctuary' (Henry had to hide a laugh at that. Sammy was sensitive to that kind of thing, and he probably used this as a deterrent to prevent others from entering his office) he had to play the instruments in a specific order. It was just a bit cheesy, but Sammy was melodramatic and he was even worse while they were setting up Joey Drew Studios together. If he recalled correctly, Sammy had hissed like a spitting cat when Joey and Henry had surprised him with cake. Granted, it was cake thrown at his face, so maybe Sammy was reasonably less pleased with the cream smashed all over eyes.

Henry huffed and puff as he sprinted back and forth across the corridor. Turn on the projector, play the banjo, then the piano, then the bass, and back to the piano again. It had taken a few tries, mostly because he had forgotten the pattern and had to restart the pass code all over again, but finally, the projector shut off and a gate opened up that allowed him to access the ink flow valve.

 _Was that an Bendy cutout that just appeared out of nowhere?!-_

Henry was more distracted with the ink creatures that appeared once again to attempt to...press-gang him? He wasn't sure of the exact word, but the creatures had no reason to go out of their way to chase him. The chance of keeping his clothes intact was getting ever more remote by the second...

"We're good." Henry sang to himself. " _We're good."_ Now that the ink had been drained away, Henry opened the door to Sammy's office.

Once in, he found some blueprints for the Ink Machine (Mark 2? That was definitely not a good idea) and attempted to put them away, only to realize that he had yet again forgotten his satchel. Henry usually brought the satchel around; it helped to remember to keep things in one location, but bringing the sling bag around was another matter altogether. Henry folded the papers instead, and crammed it as far down his pocket as he could before turning on the radio in a rare moment of guilty pleasure.

Sammy Lawrence would have shrieked at him if Henry had touched his table in the old days. With even less patience on his best days compared to Henry, the music director was like a cactus when he interacted with his coworkers. Henry was privately scared of the former factory worker who had decided to switch occupations; but at the same time he admired the talent it took to compose songs at the rate at which Joey demanded them too.

Whilst wandering about the basement, Henry had heard his coworker two times through the tapes. One was normal Sammy, complaining about the Ink Machine and people coming in and out of his office to flip the switch. Henry could get what Sammy was driving at; Louis would have been irritated if someone else had decided to hover his shoulder as others must have done when Sammy was in the room.

But the other was weird though.

 _He appears from the shadows to rain his sweet blessings upon me. The figure of ink that shines in the darkness. I see you, my savior. I pray you hear me. Those old songs, yes. I still sing them. For I know you are coming to save me. And I will be swept into your final loving embrace. But loves require a sacrifice. Can I get an amen?_

 _Hilarious_ , Henry thought. He had mildly freaked out when someone who sounded like Sammy had repeated the last statement, but upon thinking it further, Henry blamed it on the faulty tape recorder. After all, it was not as if Sammy would have been still around. Unlike the animation industry, Henry was pretty sure Sammy was probably slinking around the music industry, which was wider and more popular among the younger ones. In fact, Henry would not be surprised if Sammy had moved out of the industry altogether and composed for some of the more popular singers that the interns were fond of. Sillyvision was small fry in comparison to those larger record companies. Not to mention Sammy was ten years younger, and had only dropped to do cartoon animation after the factory in which he had been working in went bust after the Great Depression. His life was ahead of him, much unlike many of those who had been drafted by the US army.

 _It's time to believe._ That sounded...horribly familiar, like the scribbling on the altar and Sammy's cassette tape that had been placed there as well.

Wait a minute. If Sammy was the one to record both the cassette tapes (and he had uncharacteristically called his songs _stupid)_ then he had to have been the one who scribbled both messages down as well. Henry felt fear fluttering within his chest, but he decided to take a half-glass full approach to it. Sammy was not stupid. The moment Sillyvision appeared to be going out of business, he would have left by then, but maybe after Henry left, he would have stayed on because Joey was their friend and someone had to look after the old Great War veteran after the healthier of the two animators had 'struck the big one' in being unexpectedly drafted for the military.

That was really a tough time.

With a decisive nod, Henry pulled the big switch and drained the stairwell. Now he would be able to make it out, hopefully in time before Jeanne firmly landed on the idea of using the car to enter the building. Jeanne must be worried by now, it should have been more than one hour–-

A violent thud crashed upon his head, and Henry, for the second time in an hour, collapsed onto the floor.

 _"Rest your head. It's time for bed."_ Henry barely made out these last few words before losing consciousness.

* * *

When Henry came to, he found himself trapped. Bound, likely with thin hemp ropes that he could break through. Also, without an axe, which was both terrifying and alarming. Still, he had his keys, and the knot securing him was not done properly. He would need a few minutes, but Henry was confident of breaking out.

There was a mysterious man, dressed in grey overalls with patches and ink on the hem. Ink continuously dripped down his face, soaking into the patchy, worn pants. One suspender was slipping off, showing ribs sticking through the skin. Henry inwardly compared the man to some of the prisoners of war that had been rescued from the concentration camps after the Pacific phase. Bare ribs sticking out like a sore thumb, and each hand had what appeared to be four fingers rather than five. Henry could barely make out his feet, as ink and bell-bottom hemlines had made his feet nearly invisible to the untrained eye, but if that man was anything like those captured during the war, he suspected that the fingernails and toenails of this guy would have turned yellow if the ink was washed off. Henry guessed that whoever it was behind the ink-spattered Bendy mask must have lost most of his hair as a result of starvation, but it was the fact that all of his sharp teeth were intact that set off warning sirens in Henry's brains.

 _"There we go now. Nice and tight. We wouldn't want our sheep roaming away now, would we?"_ The man leered in a horrifying tone as he tilted his head, yellow-stained teeth beaming in a creepy grin at Henry. However, the voice felt familiar…almost as if he had spoken to Henry recently.

Or had he?

"Sammy? Sammy Lawrence? Is that you?" Henry weakly spoke, trying to buy for time. The keys he had brought along were stealthily winding their way through the knot. Just a while before he could free himself. This man probably had not gone to war before, and thus his rope-tying skills were abysmal. Henry estimated that despite being tied to a chair, his arms bound behind him, the man who _seemed_ to sound like Sammy lacked the experience of actually kidnapping someone. This was probably his first time at getting the drop on a war veteran.

"Who's Sammy? I am _His Prophet_!" The man announced, before continuing his original spiel. " _No we wouldn't. I must admit I am honored you came all the way down here to visit me. It almost makes what I'm about to do seem cruel. But the believers must honor their savior. I must have him notice me. Wait, you look familiar to me. That face."_

" _Of course you would recognize me you blithering IDIOT!_ " Henry angrily retorted. "I'm your co-worker!" He kept on attempting to wring his hands free, but the last knot was a bit too stubborn for him to unwind from behind, so he had resorted to using the keys to saw through the rope. Henry needed to keep Sammy (oh Sammy, _Sammy, what have you done to yourself? What kind of hogwash have you subscribed to? )_

" _Not now. For our lord is calling to us, my little sheep. The time of sacrifice is at hand! And then, I will finally be freed from this…prison. This inky, dark…abyss I call a body."_

"Sammy, just stop and think! Why are you offering a _human being_? What kind of god would ask for you to kill someone? I strongly suggest that you go see a doctor, this isn't like you at all!"

" _Shhh!"_ Sammy quietened him, before whispering, " _I can hear him. Crawling above. Crawling! Let us begin. The ritual must be completed! Soon he will hear me. He will set us free!"_ Set who free? Was something keeping him bound to here?

"...Yeah, that's as much as I can take, you delusional _twit_!" With a heavy thud, Henry's eyes widened as Sammy fell to his knees. He raised his eyes in disbelief as Jeanne emerged from behind the self-proclaimed prophet.

"Uncle Henry!" She yelped, shooting forward even as Henry finally untied himself from the ropes that held him onto the chair. "Uncle Henry, what's this about? Candles and bodies and ink puddles all over! Oh if only I have a mop–" Henry nearly choked with laughter at this non-sequitur, but decided to simply embrace his niece instead.

"There there." Henry stroked his niece's hair as she curled into him for comfort. "What do you do with the ink creatures?"

"What ink creatures?" She questioned, pulling from him in dismay.

"That–" Henry stared, almost willing the phenomena behind him to disappear. The monstrous Bendy was back, sprinting towards them in a ferocious run. Henry hollered in panic, alerting Jeanne who screamed as she flung ...something into the monster.

Unexpectedly, the monster screeched, hurtling away from the object. It seemed almost to scar him, and as Henry's eyes focused upon it, he realised that it was nothing more than an ink-remover, taken from the table of one of his animation interns. It was incongruous, a horrible beast destroyed by such a simple and commonplace _thing._ But that didn't matter, as the bottle had uncapped, spilling its contents across the floor and releasing a pungent smell.

"H-Help me..." Henry's eyes glanced towards the man who had knocked him out, and attempted to sacrifice him like a lamb to the slaughter. Worry and disgust warred within his heart. He hated how he had been trapped by the man's selfishness, how whoever this was had been insane enough to think nothing of murder, only his self-fulfillment of delusions. However, kept in such a location, starved to a degree almost unseen except for wartime...this was too hard for Henry to countenance. He simply did not want to see another of his friends to be reduced to skin and bones like many of those who had died post-war because of health complications. Finally, he decided to take action by snatching his satchel from Jeanne and whipping out a piece of glossy paper and a pen.

"Uncle Henry, hurry up!" Jeanne seemed almost exasperated at his actions, but Henry was intent on what he was striving to achieve. He had to get this out, before it was too late for both of them.

"Jeanne, take Sammy!"

 _"What?_ "

"The guy on the floor!"

"Are you kidding me? He's just tried to _sacrifice_ you to _who knows what_!"

"Please!" Jeanne wrinkled her nose in disgust but threw Henry's former music director on her back, heading down the stairwell that Henry had been heading to before being struck down by Sammy. Henry finished his note with a flourish before throwing it at the monster. Thinking it was one of those things that Jeanne had hurled at him earlier, the ink monster had sidestepped the note, giving both Henry and Jeanne enough time to scurry up the stairwell, down the corridor, and through the exit.

Henry looked back at the studio, wheezing for breath as he crouched down, legs akimbo. For the first time, Henry had noticed that the majority of the windows to the studio were boarded up. Yet light shined through despite the main power source having been cut off after the studio had been abandoned. Was there an internal generator of some kind? Why was the studio not shadowed in darkness, despite overflowing with ink monsters.

Jeanne dropped Sammy onto the dirt path next to them, and if Jeanne's glare was made manifest, than Sammy would have been burnt to a crisp with the passion of a thousand suns. Alas for Jeanne, all the man hidden behind the mask did was to moan in pain, arms splayed against the ground. Henry was gruesomely reminded of one of those soldiers he had seen in the war; the Japanese had repeatedly filled his stomach up with water before forcing him to throw up by stamping on their abdomen. In fact, both he and Sammy made the same rattling breaths that thirty years earlier would have haunted Henry as a young man.

"Uncle Henry, what..who is this Sammy?" She asked, keeping an eye out for the monster. Henry sighed, wondering how to explain the whole series of events that had led to Sammy being outstretched between the two.

"It's a long story. First though, we need to get him to the hospital." As he motioned towards Sammy, Jeanne held out a hand to stop him. She went into the car, proceeded to take out a set of ropes before winding it around Sammy in loops.

"What? I can't just let him go into the car like that. Like seriously, whoever goes around in that needs professional help." The two looked at the figure just lying on the ground between the two of them. Jeanne scratched her head as she bent down, tying Sammy's arms firmly to his back.

"Uncle Henry?" Her voice held a nervous tone. "I think something's wrong with him." Curious, Henry bent down as well, wincing as his knees cracked. He shifted his position, allowing his fingers to rest against Sammy's neck. It was unsteady, spiking every so often. Almost as if he were suffocating...Henry attempted to remove the Bendy mask, but Sammy had turned his head away and try to bite him in return, so Henry let go. Every so often, the man would let out a wail of screeching pain, as though he was being eaten by ants and various insects, but otherwise, he would remain as still as a log.

"This must be what he was talking about. Using a sacrifice…I wonder." He tapped his chin. Sammy had four fingers per hand, when Henry was pretty sure that he should have five. Rubbing away at his finger failed to reveal any skin, just more ink. Something had irrevocably changed Sammy for the worse, and Henry had a sneaking suspicion that the Ink Machine was at the root cause of it.

"Sacrifice? Anything to do with this?" Jeanne whipped out Joey's book, the _'Illusion of Living'_.

"You are a darling, Jeanne." She blushed in embarrassment, but Henry gave only a cursory smirk as he flipped through the pages, stopping as he found the ritual that Sammy had been ranting about. It involved a living creature standing within a familiar pentacle, while the bound person or thing would be 'freed' from his shackles. Whatever that was, but Henry had a feeling that it had something to do with the lack of a response to external stimuli like being dropped on one's ass, though Sammy was definitely still conscious.

Perhaps by taking away the book, Jeanne and stopped the power going into the building. Yet at the same time, whatever had caused Sammy to be roaming around the studio in search of 'sacrifices' must have ceased as well. Henry explained his train of thought, but Jeanne's expression grew more bewildered as he did so.

"Seems a bit hokey-pokey, wishy-washy to me." Jeanne arched her eyebrows. Then, she glanced at her uncle.

"Uncle Henry, _no._ "

"Uncle Henry _yes._ "

"What's the cost? Blood? One's lifespan? Wait a minute." Jeanne, bless her heart, caught on to his hidden intent as she focused on what Henry had been indicating with a point of his finger.

"You want to use the grass around us? Would it have any side-effects on the user? What makes you think this would work?" She rapidly fired questions as she snatched the book and flipped through.

"I think this makes sense, as the ritual seemed to be a counterpart to this spell that involves binding one to an effigy. The pentacle's the same, so I think that doing the probable spell in reverse should do the trick." Henry squeezed Jeanne's fingers with his hand. "And you know what, I think that Sammy deserves a second chance. Not to mention that Louis would disapprove if we were to bring someone with four digits on each hand and covered with ink to the studio, while taking him to the hospital would immediately elicit a complaint."

"Alright..." Jeanne reluctantly acquiesced. The two set up the ritual, and using the ink that had drenched Henry's shirt, they were able to trace out the pentacle that had been used by Sammy earlier. Jeanne had turned away as Henry roughly repeated the inscription that Joey had written on the page margin, and the two shivered as light shrouded both the circles containing the randomly selected patch of grass and Sammy.

The air seemed to grow still. Something unearthly, perhaps even mystical surrounded the circle, causing the grass to rapidly shrivel and turn brown. On the other hand, Sammy, held in another circle, started coughing as the ink on his skin started to crack, peeling away from bare skin like dry concrete. Like a horror movie, Henry could not look away from hardened ink cracking and falling apart, leaving reddened skin behind. Once whatever was...summoned by the circle returned to wherever it was (Henry privately hoped that it was just a one-off exchange), Henry rushed towards his former co-worker, balancing him upon his knee in order to facilitate Sammy's breathing. Ink spattered over Henry's ruined shirt as Sammy struggled to breathe through ink-clogged nostrils and airways.

"Sammy? Sammy!" Jeanne helpfully removed the mask, provoking a cry as Sammy's bloodshot eyes opened, perhaps for the first time in years. The former music director's pupils were dilated at first, before his face darted about in panic as he surveyed his surroundings. His head twitched from side to side, drool escaping from his mouth uncontrollably, akin to recovering from an addiction. Perhaps Bendy was a kind of drug, Henry thought. Sammy's hands grasped for something and Henry offered his other arm, wincing as Sammy tightened all ten fingers around his wrist with a death-like grip.

"W-wha?" Henry sighed as he heard his colleague's voice, confused and terrified but definitely without the strange intonation of madness. _What a relief._

"Sammy, it's Henry. I'm your friend, do you remember? We used to drink coffee together when we were having break." The man blinked, probably staring at the outside scenery for the first in a long time.

"H-Henry?" He echoed, looking around, searching for something. "W-Where-" he gulped noisily, Adam's Apple bouncing in his throat as he tried to talk, but his voice was far too hoarse. He continued to cough out ink, the liquid probably having been lodged in his throat for some time.

"Sammy, what was the last thing you remembered?" Henry asked, suspicion creeping in with every twitch of Sammy's head. He knew that Sammy was working at Sillyvision when he left, but now that it was evident that Sammy had not moved on but had wandered around looking for victims to sacrifice to Bendy, Henry was wary of what had happened.

"J-Joey." Sammy hoarsely replied, frowning in thought. "He told me to come to his office, said he had something interesting–-" Sammy's voice broke, and heightened into a keening wail as Sammy proceeded to sob, banging his head against Henry's neck. Jeanne clucked in dismay as Henry gently rubbed circles onto Sammy's back.

"What the hell happened here?" Jeanne snarled as she sat down with a thump. Sammy ignored this, continuing to cry into Henry's shoulder as the older man tried to comfort him. Sammy's face had grown gaunt and thin, his cheekbones visible even through the ink-soaked flesh. Henry could feel Sammy's ribcage through his skin, with his suspenders barely holding his pants up. Even after performing the ritual, Sammy had yet to recover, apart from having patches of skin exposed and somehow having regrown a fifth finger along each hand.

"Sammy, we're going to get you to a hospital to wash up and treat for injuries. I will be joining you there, while Jeanne, my niece, will get us some clothes for home." Sammy was too light, Henry thought to himself in pained frustration. Together, the two made their way back to the car, with Sammy slumped into the backseat while Henry maneuvered to slide in along with him. Jeanne released the brake, and the car reversed from the studio and entered the main road.

* * *

"I hope that we aren't going to go back there, Uncle." Jeanne said, once it was clear that Sammy had exhausted himself completely and fallen asleep despite having both hands tied behind his back.

"We have to." Jeanne startled, pulling the car to a halt along the road shoulder. She turned her eyes towards Henry, face locked into a scowl as she hissed out, "WHY? WHY ARE WE GOING BACK?"

"Because I promised that I will be back." Henry answered, eyes staring straight ahead. "I'm not breaking that promise this time."

"This time?" Jeanne repeated. "We might not even have a next time! That place is so dangerous! Ink creatures? Bendy-like monsters? I don't understand why you want to even _return_!"

"I have friends there." He said, patting his pocket. "I left a note saying that I'll return in two weeks."

"Oh yeah? Like Mr. Lawrence over there, who might I remind, tried to _sacrifice_ you?"

"No, it's another kind of friend." Henry laughed. "One might even say it's a kid of mine."

"Uncle Henry, you have no kids, what are you even talking about?" Jeanne laughed as she restarted the car, rejoining traffic. Henry gave her a grin, even as he used the paper towels stored at the back of her car to gently wipe the ink away from Sammy's face. As he thought, Sammy's skin had became a lot more solid, but it was still stained, and he hoped that the hospital would be able to remove it successfully. Sammy had but strands trailing from his nearly bald head, but he did not seem to have aged in the last thirty years besides the signs of starvation and dehydration.

Just what had Sammy undergone? And what _had_ happened to Joey?

* * *

 _Guys,_

 _Taking Sammy to hospital. Be back in two weeks. Haven't forgotten. See picture as to reason why._

 _Henry_

Boris turned over the note, having noticed it being left behind by-–he wouldn't go into that, but upon flipping it, a smile began to creep up his cheeks.

A middle-aged man had his arms wrapped around the child in the centre, a girl with twin pony-tails and a wide grin. She herself had her hands around a Bendy plushie, while two other children, boys with different skin tones and expressions watched her as she blew out the candles on a Bendy themed cake.

To Boris, it was a sign. He tucked it into his overalls tenderly, before looking at...that thing.

"I will find him." The monster roared. "I WILL FIND HIM!"


	3. Chapter 3

"Just where did you find this man, Mr. Henry Ross?" The officer, bleary-eyed and irritated, was just about as done with the questioning as Henry was.

"As I said before, at my old workplace. I was exploring the area when I found him covered in ink." Henry found himself explaining for the umpteenth time as he tapped his finger against the table repetitively, leaning his head against his palm. Sammy had been taken to the emergency room once they reached the hospital, with Jeanne taking a vigil while Henry had been whisked off to answer questions.

Truth to be told, Henry found that he knew little about Sammy. Joey had literally picked Sammy off the street after finding him busking for petty cash. Joey had convinced the retrenched factory worker to become his music director on the spot; Henry, on the other hand, was not convinced until the newly-employed Sammy had written his first song and performed it within less than three days.

However, Henry and Sammy had been there when Joey Drew had started his studio, and while Henry had left, Sammy remained. The delusional maniac had tried to sacrifice him to _Bendy,_ so Henry's sympathy was fully balanced out by his closet disgust. But at the same time, Sammy was probably poisoned by the ink, so Henry was more inclined to forgive that, he supposed.

Still, this interrogation was wearing on his experience.

"I do not have records of a Mr. Sammy Lawrence, especially in this area." The officer exhaled in disappointment, "But I guess that we would be at a standstill till dawn if I insist on procedure. Do you have any employment details of him at the very least?"

"As I have already said," Henry made his exasperation clear, "I knew him when he was working at Joey Drew Studios. I left thirty years earlier because I was drafted, but I believe that it was renamed Sillyvision after I left."

"Sillyvision has been closed for twenty-five years!"

"That is all I can tell you!"

"...Sigh, we will call on Mr. Lawrence once he is discharged," The officer revealed, "You do understand that we may not be able to follow up by investigating Sillyvision?"

"I am perfectly aware of that. Who acquired Sillyvision's lot? The place seemed abandoned when I visited the area, and I was able to enter without a key." Henry thought for a while, before hastily adding, "I was invited by the former owner of Sillyvision, yet I am unsure of his whereabouts."

"I will help you check up on that, and will inform both you and Mr. Lawrence when I'm done." The officer scratched his head. Then he started. "Have you been here long, Mr. Ross?"

"Not particularly," Henry recalled, "I moved here partly because of the close proximity to Burbank, but I was previously in New York for five years." It seemed that the policeman was aware of some details that Henry was not. It was time to do some digging.

"...You may not know this, but there were some children who had broke in to play, but they had returned saying strange things. Moving cardboard pictures, rotten floorboards and what not."

"Oh?"

"Well my ma told me this, and she heard this from the local butcher, so it's all credible rumours, but the fact is that the place had been abandoned for some time, yet we haven't seen any developments. It's all a wee bit suspicious, and then you come down from there with someone who hasn't got identification papers or proper clothes!" Henry winced at that. It was a hassle for the hospital staff, especially when Sammy had woken up and struggled, uttering apologies and prayers to Bendy until a nurse had administered morphine. Were it ten years ago, Henry suspected that Sammy would have been admitted to a mental asylum before too long. However, government changes in health policy, according to Jeanne, had changed such that they were more focused on patient involvement and some other small details that he wasn't aware of.

The officer finally released Henry at the crack of dawn, which was all very well and good until Henry realised that he had two rotoscoping projects to animate. Then, he felt like going back to sleep. A good talk with an old friend after dinner had turned into a fiasco culminating in both a hospital stay for an old colleague and interrogation. And he still had work to do!

It was lucky that he had arranged himself a little break, with Jeffrey substituting him as acting animation director after next week. Louis had looked relieved upon hearing it, despite being the assistant animation director. Probably because he despised discussion meetings with 'Twiddledee' and 'Twiddledum', as he called the Lim twins. Jeffrey, who was better at communication, was a better match despite not being permanent staff, as he had worked in Fleischer and then in Paramount Famous Studios before he quit due to what he called "leadership changes". Henry guessed it was due to the kind of work he received there, but since Jeffrey wasn't willing to share, he refused to pry.

As he walked back from the police station, he encountered the dispatch clerk, who waved to him as he emerged from the mail office.

"Want a ride, Mistah Henry?" The man asked as Henry shared the last bit of coffee that Jeanne had brewed earlier on. As always, it was delicious, and Henry felt his fatigue fade away as he gulped down the lukewarm coffee.

"No thanks, gotta wait for the lady boss." He motioned to the dispatch to get on with his work, and the man responded by giving him a cocky salute, which made him laugh straight from his belly.

Jeanne was munching down some sandwiches, passing them to him even as she gulped down each bite. Henry rapidly relayed the concocted story, with Jeanne nodding or frowning as she heard him.

"Sounds good enough. I'm kind of impressed with the doctor's aplomb; he was willing to come to the hospital before the cock crowed in order to check up on the twit." Henry grimaced, but Jeanne ignored his expression as she continued, "He's in relatively stable condition; they say they're going to have to keep him in observation for the next two months before he would be discharged. But where shall we keep him?"

"I would like to hear what you say first." Henry quirked his lips up as Jeanne looked intrigued. "I will only give my opinion. After all, you are the one who runs the show at both the studio and the building."

"If you intend to keep him in the building, that's fine. However, have you thought of what this guy might feel? He probably hasn't seen the light of day for years. We will be introducing him to just a newer version of the place he had been trapped in. Our place isn't ideal." Jeanne casually waved her fingers. "If it were up to me, I think that a mental institution would be the best place."

"There is a catch to that, I presume."

"Who's paying? Any mental institution that requires inpatient treatment would be expensive, and would take a cut of our current savings. Are we able to meet that requirement without affecting our current projects?" Jeanne's brow furrowed with thought as her fingers started tracing numbers. "It will be a cool six months worth of revenue, without medical care. And since we can't find his papers nor any close relatives, relying on the state to subsidize would be almost impossible."

Jeanne raised good points, but Henry knew that there were worse options available that Jeanne had not revealed. Such as throwing Sammy out, but he was also unwilling to consider that. It was Henry who had decided to rescue him, thus he had to pay for the consequences.

"If need be, then I'll take it out of my personal savings."

"Is that so?"

"I will need you to contact David for help to apply for papers though." Henry reminded Jeanne. His niece waved it away with a huff.

"Possible. But you do realise that your dream of releasing a feature animation film before you ... _retire_ is growing less and less probable?"

"I understand it completely. It's okay Jeanne." Henry cheerfully gripped both her hands with his left, and tightened his fingers around hers. Jeanne appeared to be distraught, but this was rapidly replaced with a forced calmness that hid the current workings of her mind.

"Okay then, Uncle Henry. I'll contact David immediately; Sammy should be awake at around 9 am if the nurses have timed it correctly." Henry resigned himself to a short snooze next to Sammy's bedside. His back was going to hurt like _mad_ after this.

* * *

 _Sammy was drowning._

 _His vision cloaked in darkness, Sammy could feel ink going down his throat, gradually choking as more and more flowed from-somewhere. The taste of ink was bitter and metallic, yet as even as he tried to keep his mouth shut, ink continued to meld through his skin and into his body. Bubbles made what he was ripple._

 _"Oops!" exclaimed the dancing devil, smiling as he usually did. "Too much force!" It lifted the comically large hammer off his body, and Sammy whimpered as the pressure was released. His body, more akin to one of the many puddles that dotted the surrounding area than an actual person, was nothing but a collection of organs, blood and ink. It attempted to stitch itself together, bone to muscle to ink until he had reconstituted once more. The process was excruciating; Sammy felt as though his nerves were on fire the whole time as he painstakingly struggled to visualize his idea of what a human should look like. His non-existent heart dropped into his belly as he caught sight of the faint shadow cast over him. No. No. NO!  
_

 _"Let's try again!" The dancing devil waved the hammer over him, and Sammy closed his nonexistent eyes, bracing himself for impact-_

"AARGH!" Sammy opened his eyes, half expecting to see those wooden boards, the falling planks, the ink covering everywhere in sight. Instead, to his amazement, he felt whole. As though there were no hammers that had fallen on him. There was something soft beneath him, rather than the timber flooring of the studio. There was no Bendy cutout, no pentacle, no candles.

But wait, why would he be expecting candles? What had happened? Sammy tried to recall the last event he remembered.

 _Listen, Bendy, hear me. I have given him your blood. He has drank from the Ink Machine. He is to be your vessel, your chosen, your voice, your body. He is your body. Claim him, for he has been chosen, for he is willing._ Sammy could vaguely remember someone talking. Who was it? He was...smoking? No, it was because of the candles in the room, producing sickly-sweet perfumes. The desk was mahogany, not cheap at all. There were ink wells. In fact, there were many empty bottles of ink wells. What else? A pentacle. So the ideas of pentacles came from there. Then?

His thoughts were brought to a screeching halt as his head throbbed. Sammy clenched his teeth, willing the agony to go away. He had to focus. Somehow, he had been brought from that table, that room, to this place. The air smelt like antiseptic, something which stung his nose and eyes, but that was okay. Why was it? Keep thinking, Sammy told himself. How did I come here?

Sammy decided to examine himself. He was...thinner from what he remembered. Ten fingers, with yellowed nails, long and chipped. For a pianist, this was abhorrent. Sammy knew that in his right mind, he would have never left his nails grown to this standard, because he would have clipped them in order to play. Thus, there would have been a long period in which he went without playing. If he had played until recently, this meant that there had to be a long time gap between being in that room and now.

Sammy's head continued to scream unbearably, and Sammy knew that he had to be on the right track. A long period of time had existed between him playing and waking up here. What other clues did he have? Sammy now noticed the man who had been resting his head against Sammy's arm as he snoozed. The man had mousy-brown hair, with spectacles placed to one side. There were cuts and scrapes decorating his left arm, while his right...how strange. It seemed to remain clean. In fact, it was a lighter shade than the other arm. There was ink on the rolled up sleeves of this man, and the majority of his trousers from what Sammy could see. So the man had been the one to move him here.

Just as Sammy was about to conclude that he must have stayed asleep for a long while, the man's eyelashes batted, almost as if he was trying to push himself to wake up even as the rest of his body resisted. As though he had been through something exhausting...

 _Oh, so that's what happened._

Blinding realization hit Sammy like a pile of bricks. Without further ado, he opened his mouth, and _howled._

* * *

Henry woke up with his ears ringing. There was a little demon beating snare drums, timpani, and even a tambourine in his brain. Henry was positive that those two rascals were at it again. How many times did he tell Lim and Lim not to scare him-!

Henry was rapidly proven wrong, as his eyes focused on Sammy gasping for breath, his fingers tightened like claws along the bedsheets, tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Sammy? Sammy!" His former co-worker did not appear to hear him at all, and as Sammy drew in breath for an even louder scream, Henry raised his voice and shouted, "You're safe! You're not there anymore!"

"...It's you. You came for me." Henry shook his head even as Sammy whispered in a tremulous voice, "You rescued me, even though _I tried to kill you._ "

"Yeah, you did." Henry admitted, "But would you do it to me now?" Sammy violently shook his head, his eyes still wide with horror.

"Then it's not a problem." Henry rubbed his fingers around Sammy's hand. "I don't blame you. You weren't in the right mind." Still, Sammy seemed unable to believe him.

"Look, if I was angry at you for that, then I wouldn't have brought you here, would I?" Henry waved at their surroundings. "This is a hospital. I don't know how long you've been there, but we parted on...well, I won't say they were pleasant, but at least I did not think you deserved to be in that place."

"Oh my god, Henry. I coulda killed ya and ya still like this?" Sammy's disbelief morphed to despair. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it! I didn't!"

"Oh Sammy." Henry was less and less willing to hold a grudge. Sammy was obviously tormented and overwhelmed, and Henry felt that throwing Sammy into the streets would have been a nightmare, a stain on his conscience. He couldn't do that to his former colleague.

"Uncle Henry, I've called the nurse in." Behind him, a bustle of movement burst forth, and Henry reluctantly moved aside as two nurses helped Sammy to lean against the pillows in an upright position. As they were doing...something, Henry wasn't clear what it was, but Jeanne had patted him on the back and he followed Jeanne to an alcove.

"I've called David. He says he'll get it done within the next three days."

"That's good." Henry murmured. "I think Sammy's been traumatised by the studio."

"But Uncle Henry, how are you holding up?" Jeanne asked, and it was clear that this was one of the bigger worries that consumed her.

"I'm okay. I'm actually a bit outraged at what was going on in the studio after I left than being scared." Henry confessed. "You then?"

"You probably had a worse experience than me." Jeanne shrugged, expressing her unwillingness to get into the topic. "I would like to ask though, why you think he's worth it."

"He was the one who wrote all of the Bendy songs, back when we were popular." Jeanne wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, the later ones were pretty bad, but earlier on, they were quite impressive. And he was both the composer and lyricist, and he knew how to play multiple instruments in order to write the theme songs."

"...That's a pretty bad pitch, Uncle Henry." Jeanne remarked dismissively, "And remember? We have the Lim twins for sound engineers and Howard for vocal coaching. We don't actually need him, especially since we outsourced to United Records. In fact, we hire our soundtracks from them! Everyone does!"

"But aren't most of the copyrights owned by them as well? And we have to pay for licensing to them?" Henry slyly suggested. "In fact, I think that we could avoid that by having our own in-house composer!" Jeanne shook her head.

"You really want to keep him huh. Anyway, back to the question, I really don't want you to go back to that horror house on the hill."

"You can't stop me."

"Don't you have two rotoscoping projects to take charge of?" Henry could have spat blood at the reminder of the pressing deadlines. Instead, he lowered his head, giving her the best puppy eyes that he could muster at his age. But Jeanne held firm, tapping her pen against her arm impatiently.

"...I outgrew that years ago, and you think of using these eyes against a champion?" Jeanne reprimanded him with a half-hearted glare. "I know you arranged with Jeffrey, but you still have outstanding projects to complete. Don't overwork yourself, and I'll see what I can do."

"Yes mam!" Jeanne could have melted steel with the force of her glare, but Henry cackled as she hissed like a teapot. As the two went back into the hospital ward, Henry thought that this conversation could have been worse than what had occurred.

* * *

"...malnutrition...lucky to have survived..." The words washed over Sammy like a tide of gibberish. Perhaps it was. He was grateful for the water, but could only take it in small sips as a tube was inserted through his nose, making him gag in surprise. Now, it sat in his stomach, rubbing against his throat and making Sammy feel nauseous as a white paste flowed through it. It just wasn't natural. None of this was natural at all.

 _Well, praying to a cartoon figure isn't natural, and you did it anyway. Even to the point of sacrificing your friend to it._ Sammy violently disagreed with that opinion. If there was no one to look after you up there, then he needed to believe in _something._ And Bendy existed, was active in the studio and haunted Sammy day after night after day...

 _Then who rescued you? Was it Bendy? Was it that cartoon figure taking you out of that inky and dark abyss?_...Sammy could not remember much of his time spent in there, but he knew that Henry must have done something. For one, he wasn't dissolving back into ink when he lost control over his body. Even if he checked that his fingers were still here, every so often. For another, the simple act of feeling was enjoyable, maybe even enlightening. Sammy wondered at the feel of starched linen, sunlight falling down upon bare skin. He missed it. There were no words to describe the euphoria of _being_ , in the here and now.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sammy observed Henry stepping back into the room as the nurses parted, tests having being done. The former animator was old now. His hair glinted silver under the light, while his spectacles were thick, making his eyes smaller than Sammy remembered. Henry sat down on the chair, wincing as his back made an audible creak.

"So I was discussing with my niece, Jeanne, and we would like to extend an invitation to you after you're discharged. I currently work in an animation studio just below my apartment, and I-"

"I have a choice?" Sammy burst out, surprised.

"Yeah. I was all for sending you to a mental asylum, but only if you want to." The woman behind him asserted, her eyes rolling, "But Uncle Henry said that we should ask you first."

Sammy pondered over this. He knew his mind was working slowly, but he knew that he had to somehow give a satisfactory answer. Where had he lived before? At the studio. At _that place._ It was...peaceful there, he supposed, no one to bother him.

 _They can't exactly bother him if they're all dead, can they?_ Sammy shook his head to clear his mind of that voice. It was getting exasperating, having to consistently fight against it. Sammy was afraid of being locked up in Bedlam, but at the same time, he recognized that being kept locked up was probably better for him. Kept others safe from him.

 _Henry wouldn't mind._ Henry would, thought Sammy fiercely. He had already tried to kill him for Bendy, it would be reasonable if Henry had kept him locked away again.

 _What about the music? You can't play music when you're chained to the bed, can you?_ Sammy's mind pictured being bolted down with belts and felt a cold shiver down his spine. He did not wish to be restrained like that, he was trapped, no he didn't didn't didn't.

"Sammy? You're panicking. _Breath._ " Henry instructed, and Sammy reflexively did as Henry had suggested, sucking in air. More of the antiseptic, and he felt his lungs twinging as he exhaled. Sammy did that repetitively, wondering just when he had forgotten how to do so. Was it when he discovered that he coughed out ink along with blood earlier on? In fact, he couldn't remember anything else but _that place..._

"Okay Sammy, you're okay." Henry's concerned eyes swept into vision, and Sammy was convinced that somehow, Henry could read what he was thinking. The older man adopted a relaxed posture as he suggested, "We can take you back after two days, doctor said so. You can see how it goes; I promise that if it gets too much for you, then we can help you find a new place." That was reassuring.

"I...think I can go back with you." Sammy replied, relieved at the third option presented to him. Then his mind turned to the cold hard reality of living. "How much?"

"Huh?" Jeanne seemed almost approving.

"How much does it all cost? I mean, the hospital can't be cheap. What am I supposed to do then?"

"You can compose songs, or help out around the studio. There's bed and meals, so you don't have to worry about that." Henry dismissed his concerns with a wave of his hand. "Just focus on getting better and regaining your strength."

"Ah, okay." Sammy hesitantly answered. What did Sammy have? All of it was invested in Sillyvision, and look at how that turned out. The most Sammy could do was hard labour, and not with this emaciated body. He knew it must have been a long time, since Henry's niece was dressed rather differently than what his female coworkers used to wear. Jeanne had on a jacket over a ribbed skivvy, and was dressed in pants. Not a flapper, but something more boyish than the norm. Henry was dressed more casually, with no suspenders and a loosened tie. His ink-spotted trousers had been changed to a casual pair of corduroy pants.

"How long has it been?" Sammy whispered. "I can't really remember the date."

"It's May 22nd, 197X." Henry replied. "Seems like a long time, huh?" Sammy was stunned. His mouth went slack with surprise, as he tried his hardest to recollect the last time he had seen a calendar. When had he been stuck there? Ten years? Twenty? What had he been doing, other than praying for Bendy to take him out of that filthy place?

"Hey, I have to go now, so just...rest well, 'kay?" Henry patted his hand as he pulled away from Sammy. Sammy nodded. Right, Henry had a job now. Still as an animator, no less. Lucky guy. Has a job, has a life, still remembers who he was before...

The woman, Jeanne, remained even after her uncle left. Her face was inscrutable, but as the door closed, she gave a low-pitched snort.

"I'm not as optimistic as Uncle Henry, so let me warn you: I will not permit anyone to harm a single hair on him, not even his closest and dearest friend. If you dare to sacrifice him to a cartoon again," She drew a line across her neck, "I will make sure you _regret_ it."

Shaking, Sammy watched as she departed from the room.

 _What a tough girl. Makes you think twice about doing anything under her nose, doesn't it? Remind you of anything?_ Sammy closed his eyes, intending on drowning out the voice in his head via sheer willpower.

* * *

"Uncle Henry?"

"Hmm?" Henry had been looking through the storyboards done by Theo. They were surprisingly well done for someone who just came out of art school; Louis would have a fun time with the background.

"Are you injured anywhere else other than your head?" Henry started, before reflexively gripping his right wrist. Still the same numbness, but that was okay.

"Still in the same state. It's fine, Jeanne. I'm not too worried about it."

After all, he only had one working hand to think about.


	4. Chapter 4

"Hey hey, Twiddledum?" A man with amber eyes and black hair asked as he toyed with the other's hair.

"Yes, Twiddledee?"

"You know how Jeanne dearest said that the animation department were 'coffee vampires'?" The tips of the first speaker's mouth curled up into a wicked smirk. Anyone who saw it would have felt the looming danger. As it was, the two were alone in the recording studio. No one could hear their conversation. Perfect for planning.

"Shall we test it out then, dearest Twiddledee?"

"I believe that you have just read my mind, Twiddledum. Shall we?" The two cackled as they matched each other's footsteps, putting their hands into their pockets and strolled out of the recording studio.

* * *

"What have you found, David." David, not for the first time, beseeched himself inwardly as to why he agreed to being _the_ lawyer for Ross Studios. He could have gone into family law. Or criminal! But no, he decided to stick by the Ross family. Even doing up contracts for all their employees, no matter how _interesting_ in the Chinese manner their conditions may be.

If there was one thing that appealed to David more than anything in Ross Studios, it was Jeanne. She was not beautiful, but she appealed in a way that made David's lizard brain go _'wa-hey_ ' every time he took so much as a glance at her. Thankfully, she was as obtuse as a blunt pencil, so David was confident that he could take his time if he ever tried to go through the impossible route of courting her.

Her uncle on the other hand had a kind heart. That was a weakness, in David's view. Ross Studio had the potential; their assistant animation director had the fastest effective drawing speed compared to the other studios. However, all attempts in the past five years to poach him had met with nothing but overwhelming failure. Louis simply stuck to Henry Ross like a limpet. And its usage of contract workers had appealed to Disney, though David could see the wisdom in not challenging Disney on home territory that early into starting up.

Still, Henry's lack of ambition was a hindrance. If only they would take on larger projects, instead of simply resigning themselves to music videos and television commercials, they had the talent to make it big. And so would David's name along with it, as go-to contract lawyer for independent studios.

"I have looked into these matters and coordinated with the local police station on my investigations." He informed the two, noticing the brief glance that the two shared as they sat across the table. Oh ho, some tension perhaps?

"Mr. Sammy Lawrence was reported as one of the employees reported by Mr. Joey Drew five years back. However, in the following years, there were no tax returns reported on his behalf. The IRS (Inland Revenue Service) reported the lack of returns, and upon three years, could not find his location. Thereby they lodged a missing person report."

"As it has not reached seven years, I would be able to submit verification papers stating Mr. Lawrence's current location and condition. However, Mr. Lawrence has not put forth anyone as Next of Kin, and is stated to have aged out of the foster care system forty years back, so it is doubtful that he has any close relatives. He has neglected to draft a POA (person of attorney) as well, and thus it is up to the state to assign a representative."

"I see." Jeanne hummed non-commitedly. "Upon that other matter..."

"Yes, I have looked into the employees that Mr. Ross has mentioned. So far, Ms. Susie Campbell, Mr. Wally Franks, Mr. Norman Polk, and the owner Mr. Joey Drew have been reported by their relatives as being missing from their places of residence by various family and friends. " This led to Jeanne glaring at Mr. Henry Ross. Almost to prove a point.

"And the police have done nothing to look for them?" Mr. Ross asked disbelievingly.

"They probably thought they had nothing to look for, perhaps." Jeanne snorted.

"I'm afraid what Jeanne says is correct, Mr. Ross." David concurred, gathering up his papers. "It is likely that they were assumed dead if otherwise. The bill would be faxed to you by my secretary."

"Thank you, David." Jeanne shook his hand, causing David to hide the grin rising to his cheeks with a well-timed cough as he skipped out of the room. He wasn't going to wash his hand for at least an hour.

* * *

"What did I tell you?" Jeanne groaned as soon as she was sure that David was out of the room. Uncle Henry was being a stubborn idiot about it all, and damn it she had admired that quality in him.

"Only that my former boss might be nuts and that some of my former co-workers are trapped in a hellish studio with him."

"It's not just that, Uncle Henry!" Jeanne burst out, rubbing at her temples. "We're talking about coffins! Rituals! A great big ink machine! Disappearing objects!" After returning from the studio, Jeanne had decided to flip through 'The Illusion of Living' in order to determine the exact ritual that had somehow turned ink into living creatures. Only to find out that the book had disappeared from the car. Jeanne was sure that the book had not been taken by anyone from the studio as she had driven with the book in her possession to the hospital. Yet despite being locked, the car had not shown a sign of the book.

Uncle Henry had dipped into his pockets, and found that the blueprints he had discovered on the former music director's desk were gone at all. It was all a bit fishy, but Jeanne knew that it could not have been anyone from the animation studio as they had started searching right after getting back from the hospital, and the car was locked from the outside with Jeanne holding the keys. No one could have gotten in while they were away.

"I need to know what happened to him, Jeanne." Uncle Henry insisted, wringing his hands. "Besides, I think that there's something else that we are unaware of."

"Like what?" Jeanne hissed.

"I left _that_ there." That? What did Uncle Henry refer to? Upon pondering, Jeanne could only reluctantly approach one conclusion.

"That weird photograph of yours? And you think that's important?"

"Hey, it has you and Louis on it." Henry shrugged. "Its proof that I had not forgotten them as well."

"Oh come on Uncle, you think that the cartoons are real there? That has to be nonsense. I mean, who would ever try to bring their creations to life? It's not feasible. First, you have to ensure that they stick to model, and their behavior mustn't change...There are so many factors to consider even if you have the means to do so..."

"Jeanne, Jeanne." Uncle Henry shook his head, mirth written upon his face. "Joey Drew was ridiculously optimistic at times. I was 85% of his impulse control at all times. Each time he had a wild idea, I was the one to soothe him and help him improve it to suit the audience's taste at that time."

"85%?"

"It's a saying among those who worked at Joey Drew Studio before the war." Uncle Henry's lips twitched, perhaps in nostalgia. Jeanne felt impatient. So what if Uncle Henry's former boss had the recklessness needed to create crazy cartoons? That doesn't mean any normal human being had the power to...Wait a minute.

"Uncle Henry, there were six objects that you said you had placed on the pedestals in order to power up the Ink Machine, right?" She queried, snatching pieces of rough paper on the desk and placing it in front of her before grabbing a pen. Carefully, she drew six circles, before writing down the items she could remember. First the disappearing book, then, as Henry recited the items, she jotted down one by one the possible people they could have belonged to.

"'Illusion of Living' belongs to Joey Drew. The other one who is confirmed to have donated is Wally Franks. Wally has a cupboard, not a desk, so he's most likely the janitor." She reasoned. "Hence, maybe the wrench."

"When I was in Sammy's 'sanctuary," Uncle Henry had joined her, "I noticed that the poster that indicated the record was framed on Sammy's wall, and there was a missing one on his cupboard." Jeanne drew the record and added Sammy's name to the list.

"So we have three. A Bendy plush toy, a gear and an ink bottle." Jeanne stopped, staring at the caricature she had made of the ink well. Slowly, she turned her eyes towards Uncle Henry. The man was not even breathing, only staring in utter dismay at her drawing.

"It was taken from _my_ desk." He muttered.

"Okay, something to worry about." Jeanne drew a larger circle around the ink well. "Next question, ink creatures only started when the Ink Machine got turned on." She stared at her uncle. "What could have possessed you to turn it on?"

"I was curious about what others have been telling me about it in their letters!" Uncle Henry replied sheepishly. "You can't blame me for curiosity, could you?"

"...85% of his impulse control my foot." Jeanne whispered under her breath, before resuming in a more louder tone of voice."So if we don't leave it on, we would have a higher chance of not encountering any ink creatures as you call them."

"Agreed." Uncle Henry confirmed. "Next point, pentacles."

"I did some research. Pentacles were used in alchemy as an invocation of some kind of spirit. Candles are used for concentration and illumination." Jeanne continued as she jotted down the pentacle. "Likely, your former boss tried to summon something with a Bendy cutout being central to it all." She waved her finger in her uncle's face. "And it backfired."

"...The coffins." Uncle Henry whispered. "There were coffins...Oh god."

"So that may have been the former employees of the studio. Right, more reasons not to let you go there." Jeanne warned. "Uncle Henry, you know that going there has to bear consequences. I can't guarantee your safety." Jeanne had to make her disapproval clear, hopefully to hammer it into Uncle Henry's thick skull.

"Moving on!" Uncle Henry said hastily, forestalling any nagging on Jeanne's part. "when I was running away, I noticed that the Bendy was malformed."

"No surprise. With all the demonic arts and stuff, if it turned out half as well as Joey Drew wanted I would be surprised."

"No, Jeanne," Uncle Henry insisted, his desperation clear, "His left foot was malformed. Twisted. The monster shouldn't be able to even walk. And one of his hands were human, while the other still had five fingers!" He paced the room. All of a sudden, he turned on his heel, and Jeanne could see Uncle Henry's face blanching at the thought, "And I think that it could be Joey under all that ink."

"Don't be so noble as to think that you could rescue another of your former co-workers just like that." Jeanne spat out, "Can't you see? I'm worried about you!"

"I know and you do make valid points!" Henry hotly burst out, raking his left hand through his thinning hair. "It's just that, you know, _"_ he weakly extended his right hand, before letting it drop down.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Uncle Henry." Jeanne retreated verbally as she leaned her head against his shoulder. She knew how he had to resign himself to drafting storyboards rather than getting into the meat of the work. She knew how hard it was for him. Was she being overly paternalistic? Was her protectiveness denying Uncle Henry of the things he wanted to do?

"It was never your problem to begin with, Jeanne." Uncle Henry attempted to comfort her. "It's just that-a head animator that doesn't draw is almost useless. The most I can do are storyboards; and I just felt so old especially with all these young people around me. You would know when you're older and filled with less impetus than what you would expect of yourself."

"I wouldn't know. After all, I'm just in my late twenties. But can you see where I'm coming from? People disappearing! Objects disappearing! Ink creatures that lurk in abandoned animation studios that could just suffocate you!" She grasped his hands, both the working left one and the useless right one entrapped with her own as she stared into his eyes. "Please don't leave me alone. Please."

"Oh sweetheart, that is exactly why. Remember what I told you when you decided to drop out for Broadway?" Uncle Henry freed his hands and wrapped his arms around Jeanne. "'No matter how badly you screw up, no matter how much you hate me, I'll still be there.' They were my friends and co-workers and I can't leave them alone just to rot there. "

"I-It's not just t-that." Jeanne choked, bending down and burying her head into Uncle Henry's chest. "Ben-Ben said, Ben s-said..." She made a strangled sob, recalling what her brother had told her, "That you can't be trusted to protect yourself, and he couldn't take your lack of self-worth, and I can't. I just can't bear to see you like this..."

"Jeanne, it's fine. If you want, then Louis can come along with me. You trust Louis, don't you?"

"With my life." Jeanne felt the words creep between her lips instantaneously."But we have to ask Louis. We have to plan properly."

"Okay, if that what you say, sweetheart." Uncle Henry agreed, brushing her head with his hand. Jeanne sniffed as she wiped away her eyes. Alright, now that Uncle Henry couldn't be persuaded, then it was time to ask Louis.

* * *

"What?" Louis' placard rose up faster than any other time that Henry had seen it move. "You're still going? I thought Jeanne said that it was dangerous."

"He's got his mind set on it, I'm afraid." Jeanne shrugged, causing the assistant animation director to frown.

"And you want me to come along with you?" The placard was rapidly wiped away and a new message was smeared in India ink. Louis' face was impassioned with impatience. "Are you kidding old man? What makes you think that you can survive something that can scare _Jeanne?_ " Jeanne's name was even italicized for good measure. Louis must have been truly insistent on that point.

"That's why you're here." Henry folded his arms while feeling sweat roll down his brow. While Louis was the assistant animation director, many of the younger interns looked towards him for advice and leadership, while the older job-hoppers were reluctant to challenge Louis.

Louis' hand speed was _insane_ and renowned in the animation industry for good reason. Louis, being mute, did learn the American Sign Language for better communication. However, as the average American did not known ASL, Louis had resorted to placards that he carried around. And for someone to be used to responding to rapid questions, his hand speed had grown faster and faster until he exceeded the speed of some of the veterans in the field.

Unfortunately, Henry's reading speed was slower than Louis' writing speed. Before he was able to rebut to Louis' rhetorical question, the message quickly changed again. "I need information. Where's the script?"

"Right here, Louis." Jeanne handed over a sheaf of papers. Henry's eyes widened as he watched Louis flip through the papers, eyes scanning over the jottings Jeanne had done earlier as well as research to back it up.

"Alright. Joey Drew Studios in two weeks time? Can do. But first, let's discuss payment." Louis rubbed his hands gleefully as Henry's face fell.

"Two hours."

"Five."

"Three."

"Three and a half." Henry groaned in disbelief. That long?

"Fine. Three and a half hours of non-interrupted break with you drawing whatever you like during office hours." Louis' passion was in backgrounds. Which was fine if they weren't possible to animate by current standards. Psychic blasts, a train carriage from the Roaring Twenties, even monsters that would have scared off the detractors of the Hays Code. They were interesting material, Henry conceded, but too hard to animate to the extent that Louis wanted. It didn't help that no one else had approached Louis when they turned to in-between animation. While many of the former interns had earned their reputation by doing in-between animation for Louis as proof of their competency, they were unable to match his pure speed. Which was of cold comfort to both rival animation studios and to Henry himself.

The way that the animation workflow was structured, the speed of pushing animation to broadcasting was only as fast as the weakest worker in the chart. Louis' hand speed was one thing, but if the other animators couldn't keep up, then the backgrounds would have been finished long before the character animation was done and it was hard for Henry to promote them to broadcasters for the Saturday morning slot if the difference in quality was too jarring.

It had led to some tension between Louis and Henry; Louis had to reluctantly slow down his hand speed, but that in turn made him bored with the lack of work as the other storyboard artists had yet to complete the next episode's material. It was unprofessional for Louis to go off to do his own thing while others were sweating at the detail needed to match up to Louis, which was why Henry had restricted Louis to only break hour. However, with three and a half hours, Louis would be able to create his own animation in a month.

Louis beamed as he clapped his hands in ecstasy, before wiping away his placard and scribbling down his next comment. "Get ready to be shocked. I saw some of the storyboards that Jeffrey had done. It looks utterly ridiculous to accomplish with our own resources." Henry groaned.

"I'll go look at it." He got up to his feet as Louis followed him back to the animation studio.

* * *

"I refuse." Jeffrey made a pushing motion as he pointed at what to him was 'utterly unprofessional and outrageous work'. Out of the corner of his eye, Henry watched Theo gulp and edge as far away from him as possible, while the other animators pretended to be utterly engrossed in their work.

Besides the two rotoscoping projects that Henry was doing the rotoscoping work for, he was also in charge of assigning projects that other studios had commissioned them for. Normally, they weren't choosy about the in-betweens they did, but if there was one thing Jeffrey loathed beyond all measure, it was-

"There is no pride in their keyframes! Lack of shading even! You can't expect me to complete such abysmal work, let alone improve it!"

-Superhero cartoons. Admittedly, Henry thought to himself, Fox Studio's storyboard artists were one of a kind in their quality, and not in a good way. However, this was steady work. Too bad Jeffrey _hated_ all matter of comic-based animation, regardless of their content.

"Honestly, I agree with you." Henry put his hands up defensively as Jeffrey reared up for another shout. "However, Fox pays us well for their in-betweens, and it's steady pay."

"...Look, I know that we can't exactly choose what we can do, but I really dislike their style. You can't expect me to complete the in-between animation and imitate their style at the same time, right?" Henry inwardly shifted in position as Jeffrey sighed.

"I can assign it to someone else to head the project, but you do have to honor your contract, right? And this earns a steady income for at least a year."

"I can't move from my principles like this, Henry." Jeffrey shook his head. "Sorry boss."

"It's okay. I know you hate it, but I had to ask because of the pay."

"No dependents, remember? Fate of an animator." They went back to smiles, but Henry could see the unease in his eyes. Jeffrey was hoping to jump to Disney, but at his age, many studios would find it hard to train in their style. He had strove to work on as many Disney projects as possible, but the fact remained that Jeffrey was considered too old to train in new tricks of animation. Henry would not be surprised if Jeffrey retired in the next few years due to lack of interesting work. Henry wanted to help, but the popularity of superhero cartoons with terrible animation had meant that Jeffrey did not have the budget to push through an original animation.

Ross Studio was known for its competency in completing television cartoons, but Henry knew that if they were to go further, they had to make a break by creating a feature animation. Disney was slowing down, with their features growing stranger and less mainstream, but Henry hoped that with enough funding and bargaining, they would be able to get sponsors for a blockbuster that would pull them out of their slump.

"Okay, Warts, your turn at it." Henry called out to another animator sitting four seats away. Warts, or 'Tom Watt' as his high school certificate had noted, was a part-time hire hoping to get into Cal Arts and Henry hoped that he would be able to prove his mettle at animation such that he could get a scholarship there. Warts received it with a genial smile; the superhero cartoon would help him garner more funds to achieve his dream.

Henry, having finished handling admin matters, rolled up his sleeves as he sat at his desk sandwiched between Theo and Rachel, and started on the storyboarding for Esidisi's music video. Midway through sketching the outline, he was startled by a loud, piercing shriek.

The reason? One of the curtains had been drawn, letting in sunlight over the color animation department.

"LIM!" The Lim twins goggled for close to one minute before immediately closing the curtains.

"So-"

"It's-"

"True!"

"You're all coffee vampires!" Stephen and Steven exclaimed, exaggerating their surprise by putting their hands up in the air.

"Shrouded in darkness, you work under the power of coffee!" Henry grimaced as he stood up, feeling his back creak. Someone had to coral the twins; while he and Jeffrey were good with dealing with their behavior, Stephen and Steven Lim were precocious _brats._

" **Come back here!** " Henry stretched out his hand and waggled his finger in a 'come hither' gesture. The twins, not being the fools they pretended to be, immediately took to their heels and scrammed. Soon, their laughter echoed throughout the corridors as Henry hurried to see the damage caused by the changes in lighting.

Good grief, someone effective at management _and_ competent at sound design _was_ needed. Both were talented: Steven was their sound engineer and was responsible for upkeeping the recording studio _and_ editting the background music while Stephen was often called in to help out when the soundtrack provided by United Records was too unclear for broadcasting, but the fact remained that they were mischief-makers and loved to pull pranks, often to the detriment of the animation team. If it weren't for the fact that their pranks were seen as harmless, then Henry would really have to clam down on their activities.

Thankfully, any damage they had caused to the inking of the frames was minimal and easily modified. Still, they had to find someone to manage both them and the instigator of their worst deeds: Howard. Who was currently in Broadway and therefore harmless from that distance, but still, they had to employ someone permanent.

* * *

"So you know the rollcall, right?" Henry poked Jeanne on the forehead as both he and Louis stood right outside Joey Drew Studios, two weeks on from their last escape.

"Yeah, yeah, let's get on with it." Louis motioned with his placard. With two steps, they were in, and Jeanne waited. And waited.


End file.
